[WikiEN-l] Categories and NPOV

Sun Jun 26 20:25:53 UTC 2005

There's been a lot of talk about this at [[Category:Conspiracy 
theories]], and although I hate the fact that that label closes 
people's minds to thinking about these theories, it is the most concise 
and recognizable descriptor for them.

I'm a scientist, so I am totally biased on the pseudoscience issue, but 
I think that a well written article that is NPOV should explain both 
sides: it should describe the theory, it's history, and the objections 
of the scientific community.  In other words, a NPOV article in 
[[Category:Pseudoscience]] should already describe exactly what it 
means for it to be in that category - that mainstream science doesn't 
accept this theory for various reasons. One wouldn't need to read 
[[Pseudoscience]] in order to understand why it's been placed in the 
category.

The [[Category:Pseudoscience]] tag at the bottom is definitely used by 
some as a warning label, which I can't really fault because many 
theories cloak themselves in scientific language that can easily lure a 
non-scientist into thinking its a mainstream scientific theory backed 
by the scientific community.  I suppose that the [[Category:Conspiracy 
theories]] serves a similar purpose.

So I guess my conclusion is that it might be okay to have something 
like [[Category:Satanic lies]] for example if the article text dealt 
with who thought it was a satanic lie and why, but inappropriate 
otherwise, as the reader wouldn't understand the characterization.  Of 
course, I wouldn't use the name satanic lies.  I mean I thought 
conspiracy theory was a loaded phrase for a category name, and it's a 
commonly used.

Laura

On Jun 26, 2005, at 1:56 PM, Fastfission wrote:

> [[Category:Pseudoscience]] is one which gets objections at fairly
> regular intervals. The reasons for the objections are pretty
> straightforward -- the users making such objections are almost always
> either Creationists or Eugenicists or other people who believe in
> bodies of thought labeled as "pseudoscience" -- and the response is
> generally pretty straightforward as well: Wikipedia is not claiming
> these so-labeled articles are actually "pseudoscience", but rather
> that they are labeled *by the mainstream scientific community* as
> "pseudoscience".
>
> And the text of the category page and the [[Pseudoscience]] article
> spell this out pretty clearly, in my mind. The article itself goes to
> much length to talk about how the notion itself is seen as somewhat
> dubious even in circles of people not labeled as such -- philosophers
> and historians of science, for example, have at times gone to lengths
> to argue that the boundaries between what is a "science" and what is
> not are exceedingly difficult to lay down. Feyerabend, for example,
> made a large point out of showing that many things today considered
> canonical distinctions between "science" and other modes of thought
> did not apply to many of the "fathers" of science (i.e. Galileo,
> Newton, etc.) and others have made similar observations both in
> historical and current science. After a century of thought on it, the
> demarcation problem has still not been convincingly solved.
>
> Okay. So we have a nice NPOV article on the subject itself. But what
> about the category? Does that nuance and care get lost when articles
> just say "Pseudoscience" at the bottom of the page? Can we trust the
> user to click it and read our little explanation/disclaimer?
>
> Let's assume that we can, for a moment.
>
> What if we had an article on [[Satanic lies]], which explains that
> followers of certain religion sects view a number of modern practices
> and beliefs as lies of the Devil. It also notes that quite a few other
> religion sects don't believe in this, and that mainstream philosophers
> and scientists find this a pretty poor model of thought. After ten
> centuries of thought, the problem of knowing what is a Satanic lie or
> not has still not been convincingly solved. A nice, NPOV article.
>
> Would we accept a placement of [[Category:Satanic lie]] onto pages
> about Evolution? Sure, the category page itself would not, "Now, this
> is only believed by a certain group."
>
> Would we allow it? If not, why not? Do we accept it if we lean towards
> the mainstream opinion in categorization efforts, or do we see this as
> a NPOV problem?
>
> I've been defending the presence of [[Category:Pseudoscience]] for
> some time now as a sociological category, but it occurred to me today
> that one could imagine all sorts of circumstances in which it would
> seem hopelessly POV to have category labels of this sort (one could
> include things like [[Category:Hoaxes]] or [[Category:Conspiracies]]
> or whatever in this, if those categories exist), even if their actual
> articles (and even category pages) were written in perfect NPOV. Does
> the brevity of category labels make this impossible? I'm beginning to
> think they might, and that these sorts of categories should be
> converted wholly into lists. I wouldn't mind a [[List of Satanic
> lies]] which clearly noted who thought they were and included
> [[Evolution]] on the list. But I would mind having [[Category:Satanic
> lie]] put onto the Evolution page.
>
> Any input on this would be appreciated as I mull this over.
>
> FF
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